For Ron Bierman, the moment happened in the second grade. That’s when the Carmel Valley retiree heard Prokofiev’s children’s symphony “Peter and the Wolf” and he fell hard for classical music.

Now, with his fellow docents from Advocates for Classical Music, he’s helping to spark that youthful love affair all over again. Last year, Bierman and other volunteers with the 20-year-old organization visited 552 classrooms at 134 San Diego County schools to offer pre-concert musical lectures to more than 12,500 students in kindergarten through eighth grades.

Bierman, who does the 45-minute classroom presentations with his wife, Nowell, said it’s thrilling seeing children’s eyes light up when they recognize a piece of classical music, be it Richard Strauss’ tone poem “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” or John Williams’ “Star Wars” film theme.

“Classical music enriched my life and made it better. I want to bring that same experience to a new generation,” said Bierman, whose favorite composition is Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Advocates for Classical Music was born from the ashes of the San Diego Symphony League, which shut down when the orchestra filed for bankruptcy in 1996. Today, the group has 154 members whose $50 annual dues cover just under half of the nonprofit’s annual budget, said treasurer Richard Morgan, a retired 35-year employee of New York’s venerable classical music station WQXR.

Most of the group’s members are retired, and just under a dozen (who were original Symphony League members) have been involved for 30 years or more. Today, only 25 — all retirees — are still visiting the classrooms as docents, according to Aveline von Ehrenberg, vice president of education.

As the group’s docent ranks dwindle, von Ehrenberg said there’s a critical need for new volunteers, not to mention donors. Fortunately, a new 10-member advisory group has formed and will hold its first organizing meeting today with the goal of ensuring Advocates’ survival for future generations.

The group provides free tickets and busing to concerts for children at Title 1 schools; produces and distributes hundreds of classical CDs for classroom teachers; gives $1,000 scholarships to top youth musicians and supports the San Diego Unified School District’s Instrumental Honors concerts. But its central mission is providing docents to lecture students on the five to six concerts presented each year by the San Diego Symphony and Classics 4 Kids.

On April 22, docents will meet at the Scripps Miramar Ranch Library Center to learn the curriculum for Classics 4 Kids’ “Dancing Drums,” a concert of American Indian-inspired music, dance and storytelling that will be presented May 19 and 20.

In the month leading up to the May concerts, the docents will be rushing around the county doing classroom lectures. Von Ehrenberg said she’s done as many as six lectures back to back in a single day because there simply aren’t enough docents to meet demand.

Dana Mambourg Zimbric, Classics 4 Kids’ senior director and conductor, said the docents’ work is absolutely vital to her organization.

“It makes a huge difference in the amount of retention level for the kids,” Mambourg Zimbric said. “When the children encounter something for the first time, if they’ve had preparation, they will remember more of what they saw.”

Adrienne Valencia, education director for San Diego Symphony, echoed her sentiments, describing music education as more of a process than a one-shot deal: “When kids are prepared to attend the concert, they know what to listen for and what to look for and they absorb so much more.”

For 20 years, Advocates docents have been visiting the classroom of Marilyn Posella, a third-grade teacher at Tierrasanta’s Vista Grande Elementary. Posella said many of her students at the Title 1 school are underprivileged and the San Diego Symphony Young People’s Concerts is their first exposure to live music.

“They know what to expect after the docent’s class. They get dressed in their Sunday best and are so excited to go to symphony hall,” Posella said.

While the docents are trained to teach the concert curriculum, how creatively they deliver the information is up to them. Mimi Lee, the group’s administrative vice president and membership chair, said many of the docents are musicians, singers and retired music teachers and they have a deep understanding and passion for the subject.

Some docents show up in costumes themed to the upcoming concert, some bring instruments to play, some get the kids out of their chairs to dance or march along with the music, and others entertain the children with music trivia, like the fact that 18th-century Viennese composer Joseph Haydn was buried without his head, Ron Bierman said with a laugh.

To make the music instantly accessible to students, the Biermans often play snippets of pieces that many children know from TV commercials, cartoons and movies, like pieces from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo” or Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt.” One time, Bierman said he started talking to a class about opera and a young girl enthusiastically shouted out her recognition: “I know Oprah!”

Morgan, whose favorite classical piece is Gustav Holst’s “The Planets” suite, said that the Advocates’ work is more important now than ever because of cuts in public school arts programs. He said studies have shown that children who study music do better in other academic fields. Also, many of the local concert programs cross into other subject areas, like Classics 4 Kids’ upcoming Indian-themed show and last month’s “Symphology” concert by San Diego Symphony, which focused on the science of sound.

Reaching young minds in their developmental years can have profound effects. Lee said two of her grandsons have credited early music education with their chosen careers. One is in the marching band at UC Berkeley and the other is a singer and composer.

Valencia, with the San Diego Symphony, said music can be enlightening, but the whole experience of going to a concert can be life-changing.

“Some students in our area have never been downtown or to the beach or to a lot of places that most of us take for granted,” she said. “Just bringing them out of their neighborhoods to ride a bus downtown, see the tall buildings and hear the live orchestra with the talented musicians making music right in front of them changes the way they see the world. It’s a benefit that can’t be measured but certainly can’t be ignored.”

For information on joining Advocates as a member, docent or donor, email the group at AFCM@advocatesforclassicalmusic.org.